Search Engine Optimization

Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt has said last year “The internet is fast becoming a cesspool where false information thrives and brands are the way out”. Aaron Wall of SEO Book was the first to spot big changes in his blog post, and Wolf Howl continues the topic. This time Google was caught promoting search results on brand alone, which resulted in 8 duplicate content listings.

A search for “ferrari development car” gave this:

8 of the top 10 results are … (wait for it) … eye-dentical. Don’t believe me go check for yourself on cbssports.com, sportsillustrated.cnn.com, syracuse.com, masslive.com, sports.espn.go.com, signonsandiego.com, q13fox.com, or bx.businessweek.com. This isn’t the first time I’ve written about big brand sites getting a free ride in Google and I don’t think it will be the last (see Dupe Content Google Thinks They Have It Licked and Google The Double Standard of Being an Authority Website). Expect someone from google to dispatch a clean up crew to aisle 3 to whisk away the mess I pointed out so it no longer sticks out as an example, instead of solving the real problem.

Google needs to make big brands feel happy, because big brands are the ones with all the dollars. What we are seeing in fact is the commercialization of the natural search results. In the past it was not possible for a big brand to hold good search spots just because it is a big brand, but now becoming a reality.

The pollution of search results with brands will bring internet, in part, to a state where newspapers, TV, radio and other mainstream media outlets are – the state where you cannot trust a “reported” word. This is the thing that worries me the most.

Search Engine Round Table reports that AOL has come up with new technology:

AOL, for example, is embarking on a strategy of creating a plethora of niche websites through automated methods on which to place ads, partly through its own ad platform. It has called this “leaning into the fragmentation of the Web.

It ignited discussions on the forums and a post from Aaron Wall.

Love.com is a mashup of remixed twitter posts, youtube videos, aggressive 3rd party content snippets, automated cross linking, frame-jacked 3rd party content, pop-ups, automated subdomain spam, all pushed on a purchased domain name that had existing links.

Love.com is owned by AOL and apparently it is the website that uses this new technology.

In the previous article I talked about Eric Schmidt’s quote:

The internet is fast becoming a “cesspool” where false information thrives, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday. Speaking with an audience of magazine executives visiting the Google campus here as part of their annual industry conference, he said their brands were increasingly important signals that content can be trusted.

Google’s move to trust brand has already backfired in some categories and apparently AOL is taking advantage of the loophole full throttle, rolling out technology, that is designed to make money based solely on duplicate content. In a way they are doing black hat, out in the open, and getting away with the the SH*T.

There’s a lot of money in search and companies are still taking shots at the fortunes. Two upcoming search engines are Blekko and Wolfram Alpha.

According to Danny Sullivan Wolfram Alpha is taking big shots at Google.

Wolfram Alpha Search Engine

Still in the making, Wolfram Alpha promises to revolutionize the way we search and become a habit just as Google:

“It will raise the level of scientific things that the average person can do.  People will find that the world is more predictable than they might have expected.  Just as running Google is like having a reference librarian to help you, running Wolfram|Alpha will be like having a house scientist to consult for you.” – search engine land

The problem with Google killers is that none of them manage to make even the slightest dent in Google’s market share. Cuil was suppose to kill Google, and now I suspect, is strugling to exist. The same fate followed other search engines, which made big claims, but are now buried with no one knowing their names.

Why no one can live up to the claims? The problem with new search engines is – they try to repeat what Google did. Come out of nowhere, gain large mind share based on innovation and word of mouth alone. This does not work anymore simply because people don’t need another search engine. They have Google / Yahoo and they do a good job at finding sites and answering questions. Why bother going else where? When Google came into being, there was no quality search engine and now quality is taken for granted.

Blekko Search Engine

Blekko is another search engine in development and Danny Sullivan (the search engine expert) has some good feedback so far:

I visited Blekko, another “stealth” search engine in development. I can’t go into detail about what I saw, but I was impressed. More important, the red flags aren’t going off. I got to search for whatever I wanted on Blekko. There was no controlled list of queries I had to do. There was no claim to be ready to topple Google. More than anything else, Blekko had good mouthfeel when I used it.

Good Money 

Google has reported relatively strong results for the quarter ending March 31 2009. While revenue was down 3pc over Q4 2008, the company recorded year-on-year growth of 6pc to US$5.51bn. http://businessandleadership.com/news/article/13240/leadership/google-profits-revenues-up-in-q1

Even if a search engine fails to gain market share, it can a potential aqusition target for Google / Microsoft, since the war is here and if you don’t get it first, the competitor will.

Google has rolled out new one line sitelinks to sites below the fold. The one line sitelinks are also called classic sitelinks, since this is the way sitelinks looked the first time they were introduced by Google.

As of now, it is not required for a website to hold top position to receive one line sitelinks. You may find them in 4th, 5th and even lower spots.

Here are some featured:

• Display of this abbreviated version of Sitelinks is not limited to “branded” searches
• One-Line Sitelinks are not just reserved for the #1 result and can appear in results at the bottom of the SERPs
• One-Line Sitelinks are appearing on more than one result at a time
• A single domain can have more than one set of Sitelinks per page

Very interesting quote from All About Content.

In the case of KidsHealth.org (result #3 in the screenshot above), the main page is an unfriendly Flash page with three main buttons: Parents, Kids, Teens. “How the Body Works” is one of over a dozen submenu items within the “Kids” subdirectory. These four links, in this same order, are the first four Sitelinks in the full-size version of this site’s Sitelinks when you do a query on [Kids Health]. It’s not entirely clear at first glance where exactly the Sitelinks names are pulling from, since they are not an exact match for on-page anchor text, page titles or alt attributes. Most likely it is using a combination of those factors, but then stripping out “stop words.”

There are few ranking guides out there, covering everything from A to Z, with participants such as Rand Fishkin, Aaron Wall, Eric Ward, Danny Sullivan and others.

• Search Engine Ranking Factors
• Local Search Engine Ranking Factors
• Ranking Factors Simplified

This time a less known expert took a stab at search engine ranking factors coming out with Search Geeks Guide to Ranking Factors.

Here’s a list of items i personally found interesting:

• Thoughts; when it comes to links (internal or external or inbound) we want to build upon the theme of our core target terms. Understanding the core concepts of nodal graph link systems (such as PageRank) is mandatory to performing SEO – learn it well.
• H tags still have their value, while page TITILE tag is crucial.
• He mentions link velocity, which in my understanding is the speed with which links are acquired, otherwise – what the hell is that? The speed of the link?
• Other link factors include link age, time of year link acquired (believe it or not).

Under Trust factors he highlighted:

• domain history
• inbound links (anchor, distribution)
• outbound links, named entities and contact information.

Geo Location Factors

• location of the clients device (what city you’re in when you search?)
• Location of web page hosting
• Contact / location information
• Inbound/outbound link geo-factors
• Linguistic indicators (language and nuances)

For a full list of factors check out Search Geeks Guide to Ranking Factors.

Search Engine Roundtable reports that the best time to send out link requests is Tuesday morning between 8am and Noon. The data is based on a survey run on Search Engine Roundtable with a total of 163 participants. SE Roundtable has a very specific readership, so they are perfectly positioned to take on this survey.

The funny thing is – since so many people will see this data, webmasters are going to get bombarded for several weeks every Tuesday morning between 8am and Noon .

Links Requests

Sending out one way link requests is a tricky business. You have to be genuinely interested in a web site, have a little conversation with a webmaster before asking for a link, otherwise you will be treated as spam. And thats hard – going through a web site, pretending to be interested in the person la-ta-da-ta-da-da-da…. I just want a link ))

Link buying is still active and prosperous. Google is still fighting it…

We are happy to announce that SEO Internet Marketing Inc (SEO Expert) is an active contributor to one of the leading online publications on the topic of search engine optimization and search marketing. The site has over 100,000 readers and receives over 150,000 visitors per month.

Our Articles on SEOChat.com

Contributor: Ivan Strouchliak

• Effective Keyword Use as an SEO Ranking Factor
• Link Authority SEO Ranking Factors
• Relevance and Other Search Engine Ranking Factors
• Links and Age as Search Engine Ranking Factors
• Ranking Factors for SEO
• Coding and Search Engine Optimization
• Link Building Tips From Experts
• Search Engine Optimization, Website Development and Search Engine Spiders
• Encourage Conversion: More Advanced Keyword Research Strategies
• Advanced Keyword Research Strategies
• Google Algorithms
• How Google`s Quality Raters Treat Web Spam
• Google`s Quality Rater Guidelines Leaked
• Microsoft`s Live Search Patents and Algorithms Related to Blogs
• Google`s Trust Rank and Hilltop Algorithms
• Worst SEO Mistakes
• Optimizing Your Website
• Link Building: The Anchor Text
• Write SEO Copy Like an Authority
• The Google Force
• Google Ad Planner Review
• Keyword Research Tips
• Linkscape: Reverse Engineering the Search Engines
• Link Building Methods

You can also leave your comments about each article, discuss the information and share your own ideas.

On monday I discovered something interesting. Doing some searches at home I saw a new icon on Google search, right beside web, images and other links (pic below).

Unfortunately I did not get a screenshot of how the interface looks when you click on the icon. In essence it shows ebay items that correspond to the keywords you searched on Google, along with an option to search ebay directly.

The eBay icon showed for all the searches I did on Monday, between 9 pm and 12 pm, regardless of intent. It looks like Google was simply collecting data en masse and track people’s reactions.

The test also signifies that Google and Ebay are in a good partnership, which was sore few years ago, with ebay actually pulling all of its ads from Google and big G trying to steal talent form eBay.

Hitwise released a search engine market share report and has some very positive news for Google. According to the report Google rose to 72.39% while Yahoo and Live Search declined.

Hitwise also has some good news for Ask.com, which rose from 3.74% in February to 4.07% in March.

Apart from search engine market data, Hitwise reports that search queries are getting longer, while 1 – 2 are used less every day.

• 7- and 8-word queries both saw double digit percent increases

It’ll be interesting to see if Google’s recent rollout of local results on non-local queries will impact this trend. The change affects shorter queries the most, and many searchers are now likely to find what they want with short queries like “florists,” “restaurants,” and “lawyers.”

http://searchengineland.com/hitwise-googles-lead-growing-searches-getting-longer-17263

March 30, 2009

Attn:
Michael Wilson, President
SEO Internet Marketing
465 Saint-Jean Street 505
Montreal, Quebec H2Y 2R6
Canada

RE: IMMEDIATE CHANGE IN BUILDING POLICY

Dear Tenant;

Due to structural integrity issues, environmental concerns and a very large numbers of tenant complains, FISH TANKS in excess of 25 gallons will no longer be allowed at ********* Properties and MUST be removed, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.

Any tenant that fails to comply with this policy change will be subject to eviction.

We apologize for any inconvenience this change in policy my cause.

********* Properties

MANAGEMENT

Happy April Fools from your Loving staff at SEO Internet Marketing

Cuil

I was hesitant to put Cuil as the number 5, but after creating buzz as the Google killer (its not) I had to. Cuil, pronounced “cool”, launched in 2008 by ex Google employees. It claims to be larger than Google at 120 billion webpages, and uses that as their marketing tag line “The Worlds Biggest Search Engine”. Cuil also has a different appraoh to seach results. Instead of showing classic blue links it organizes results in 3 columns.

The start up was named as the one of the most successful and media called it the “Google Killer”, yet Wikipedia has some discouraging statistics:

According to Alexa, the site reached a peak of just over 0.2% of worldwide internet users in late July 2008 and by September 12, 2008, it had dropped to 0.02% and ranked as the 5,340th site by traffic. By October 13, 2008, it had dropped to 0.005% and ranked as the 21,960th site in traffic.[15]

About Cuil | Your Privacy

Lycos

Lycos was started by Michael Loren Mauldin in 1995. By 1999 Lycos became one of the most visited destinations in the world, competing with AOL, MSN and Yahoo in portal features. In 2000 Lycos was sold to Telefonica for 5.4 billion dollars and in October 2004 Telefonica sold the company for only $95 million. Today Lycos is almost dead as a search competitor.

About Lycos  |  About Daum | Advertise With Us

• Part 1
• Part 2

Live Search / MSN

Microsoft had many reincarnations of their search product. It was powered by Inktomi and Looksmart for a long time, however when Yahoo purchased Overture it became obvious Microsoft had to enter the game on their own. Before releseasing their own in-house technology, Microsoft used Yahoo! to power MSN. In 2005 they dumped Yahoo and on march 8, 2006 Microsoft rolled out Live Search.

They confused the hell out of everyone by creating a third brand (Microsoft, MSN and Live). To this day users are confused with “Live” brand, and Microsoft would gain userbase by simply killing Live and calling their product Microsoft Search.

Their advertising product – Adcenter competes with Adwords and YSM. Due to little search engine market share they have a small advertiser base, however their platform is very good.

Market Share: ~8%

Links: Advertise | Webmasters

Ask.com

Ask.com was originally named Ask Jeeves and created by Garret Gruener and David Warthen in 1996. It officially launched to the public in 1997. Ask experimented with different technologies, including Direct Hit, which based relevancy on the number of page views. In 2001 Ask aquired Teoma. In 2006 Ask Jeeves was purchased by IAC and they dumped Jeeves.

Ask.com has a small user base and relies on Google for pay per click results. They are very aggressive in promoting paid results, showing 4 ads on top (above search results) and 5-6 at the bottom. Ask.com has its own PPC platform known as Ask sponsored listings, but it has very little advertisers.

Market Share: ~3%

Links: About | Advertising

• part 1
• part 3